Laugh Lines

Three comedy acts in a row are lining up for performances in Springfield this week and next. First up is Etta May, “the Queen of Southern Sass,” headliner of the Southern Fried Chicks comedy tour, appearing solo at CityStage on Friday, May 2. Her act, she says, comes straight out of her “white trash” family’s life: “I just wait for my husband or kids to do something stupid, and I write it down.” Then on Sunday, Aziz Ansari hits the stage at Symphony Hall for a stand-up turn. Hailed in a Rolling Stone cover story as “the funniest man under 30,” the star of the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation is riding a career high that also includes roles in movies such as 30 Minutes or Less and this year’s Date and Switch.

And next weekend, May 8-10, Anne Marie Scheffler (pictured) returns to CityStage in Suddenly Mommy! Previously seen here in the 50 Shades of Gray parody Spank!, in this one-woman show she recounts her life as a self-confessed “bad mom”—a stepmom, in fact, in a blended family where she finds herself “a very desperate housewife” negotiating the sudden shift “from hot dates to play dates.”